Save With Jamie

A fantastic and timely new book from Jamie Oliver, Save with Jamie focuses on feeding your family healthily and economically. With his trademark tone, style and design, Jamie shows us the most delicious ways to stretch your family food budget further while still enjoying lots of flavour and good, healthy food.

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I drooled over the recipes, and copied out more than a few (particularly some creative vegetarian or otherwise vegetable-based recipes), but the book does not accomplish its goal: saving me money. First, there are very few tips beyond the obvious - actually, there were very few tips, period. Second, the tips are simply that, not teaching you to truly follow concepts in designing your own meal plan to save money. Third, there is not any explanation for how a recipe saves money, so you must just trust that following his plan will work. Fourth, the cookbook is very context specific and may not translate to savings in other countries (like Canada, or perhaps even those within the British Isles), particularly since it does not explain and give you transferable knowledge/teaching.

Why did the cookbook receive even this high a rating?I drooled over the recipes. I do not understand what people have trouble with the concept of using cooked meat in other recipes (though, so long as you eat all the leftovers, who cares if you eat straight leftovers?) and question how many are not doing so (freakish hold-outs like my Dad, sure, but the average person?). Many of the recipes are similar to ones I already made, e.g. my pork roasts become pulled pork BBQ sandwiches, pork burritos, and pork stir-fry. That said, I copied out a few new ideas and a lot of vegetable recipes (as previously stated).

Beyond that, the cookbook was returned to the library very quickly and I have no intention of buying the book.

ksoles
Jan 09, 2014

From campaigns to improve school lunches to wars on junk food to teaching a grounded approach to cooking that leaves room for experimentation, Jamie Oliver always has a mission. In his newest book, he recognizes a fact that most celebrity chefs ignore: many families struggle to feed themselves on a restricted budget. "Save with Jamie" teaches readers how to prepare healthy, satisfying meals for less.

The book has an attractive layout and contains over 250 pages of main course recipes. Unfortunately, starters and desserts don't make an appearance but, then again, this is not a reference book for entertaining; providing so many one-dish ideas might actually make it a better value for money than other cookbooks. Certainly, Oliver has compiled a wide variety of tempting recipes divided mostly by meat type: chicken, pork, beef, lamb and seafood. But he starts off with an excellent section on vegetarian mains featuring pulses, grains and vegetables that, of course, cost less than meat. Unlike other Oliver books, this one contains nutritional information for each recipe, a major bonus for some readers.

The book also contains many general tips, both on making the most of your freezer and pantry and on shopping smart in order to maximize savings and waste less. For example, Oliver recommends cooking one "mothership" meal a week, then using the leftovers to make further meals during the week.

Do the recipes really result in big savings on groceries? That depends on where you're starting from. If you eat out frequently or customarily spend a lot on expensive cuts of meat and exotic ingredients, heeding Oliver's advice will decrease your spending. But if you already strive to shop frugally and cook simply, or if you seek a true beginners cookbook with a true focus on budgeting (i.e. using food bank items), give this one a miss.

I am not interested in using these recipes. Instructions are written in paragraph, not point, form. Focus is on using the leftovers of the main meat dish be it chicken, beef, pork, lamb with a section with just veg/soup dishes. Every recipe has a 2 page spread with the ingredients and instructions on one side and a color photo of the prepared dish on the other. I liked reading Jamie's cryptic comments about each dish, but still not enough to influence me to get busy in the kitchen.

Lots of meat recipes here and a smaller veg. section-50 pages- including full page photos on every other page. Interesting creative and easy recipes to follow. Very low cost recipes are included at the back. The photos are amazing-rustic-using everyday dishes and cooking tools. Some good hints on how to use up food and not waste i.e. left over veggies becoming pickles! This cookbook inspires you to start seeing the possibilities of food especially left overs being used in different ways. For example- i have a fruit compote recipe for the holidays that calls for Blackberry Port, ($18 a bottle} so got some frozen blackberries that we had picked, cooked and strained them and added to some left over wine with a dash of brandy and viola-my "blackberry port" for "free". Worked perfect-thanks Jamie.